"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise, it wont be boring. "

What is so fascinating about my tiny, tiny, tiny little porch, aka, stoop? No. The garden above is not my garden, and the cat is not my cat. The house is not my house. This is how I feel sitting on my stoop filled with plants. Replace the cat with my dog, KD, and you've got the way that the stoop always looks in my imagination. #StoopLife was a big thing with Peter and me. So I was worried. How would I do planting without him? That was one of our special things. Well. I had a few teary moments missing him, who wouldn't. I am very pleased with my little stoop garden. Ive got more flowers this year. I still have lots of vegetables growing, and herbs. Solar flower lights. I *needed extra flowers this year. I want to pull in to my driveway and see a flower garden, every single night when I get home from work. I want to be blown away with their beauty. Ive got too many now, and Ill probably add more. We have had intermittently warm/sunny days recently. I have started to readopt the tradition of sitting on the stoop with KD. This is her happy place, her window on the world. She loves to watch the people go by. She sits there calmly. She will happily greet any passersby whom would like to pet her. And there are lots of them. Shes awfully cute. Im pretty sure Ive mentioned that before, if youve been following along. The beautiful thing about the stoop is that ...ok. Im just going to say it. It has magical powers. If Im the least bit lonely, I sit out there for mere moments, and someone will come along and talk to me. Whether I want them to or not, almost. In the approximately three years that I have lived here, this stoop has hosted cowboy bands, impromptu actors, lots of strangers, lot+lots+lots of my friends and family. My former neighbor Bobby used to show up with bunch of friends, and Id pull out chairs, we'd take up the entire sidewalk besides the porch. Nobody cared. In fact, if people walked by they would be most likely to stop and talk to us. My neighbors, Joey and Cherie,and their beautiful pit bull Zeus are frequent stoop visitors. In the past couple of weeks, I have walked out there to find four people skateboarding on the tiny little stoop. Rappers who were performing at a nearby bar. An over-amorous drunk guy. People drumming and playing guitar right across the street in a little park. *These people, I ran over and offered food. Im not sure why. But holy, heck, were they grateful, and they played a bunch of my favorite tunes for me. One of my neighbors, who didn't want to wake me up in case I was sleeping, was sitting there on the stoop with drinks just in case I was awake the other night. I was!Ive lived enough life to have had some beautiful porches. Ive been blessed to travel quite a bit and see incredibly spectacular gardens and porches. This is, by far, the smallest ever. Yet. Its magical. #StoopLife 2017. The story continues.